


Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction

by DJClawson



Series: Theodore Nelson's Adventures in Sharing a Workspace [34]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Avengers Sexceptions, Buddhism, Buddhist!Danny, Established Relationship, M/M, Weed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25174927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: look I've been trapped in my apartment for four months; asking for a summary for this nonsense is asking for a lot
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Theo Nelson
Series: Theodore Nelson's Adventures in Sharing a Workspace [34]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1202407
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> All hail the mighty beta, LachesisMeg. All hail.

“Why did I agree to do this?” Theo grumbled as the subway rumbled and threatened to rock him back to sleep. 

“Um, you’re a supportive friend?” Ward said, balancing his own cup of ridiculously expensive coffee on his knee. “Whereas, I have no excuse. Where’s Matt?”

“He has court.”

“This early in the morning?”

“He’s gotta be fresh for it,” Theo said. “And ... he kinda said that the horns and the bells are just sensory hell for him. And he’s only heard a recording.”

They had their own car in the L train because of the hour, hovering between late at night and early morning. There was a homeless man camped out in the next one. Theo went to sleep extra early for this but it didn’t help too much. “Why are you so chipper?” he asked Ward.

“I’m not chipper. But I would normally be waking up right now, to catch the European financial market news. Someone has to keep the company’s investments straight.”

“You can’t find a tutor for Danny?”

“He’s finishing his GED first. Which he would be done with already if he didn’t keep jetting off to Asia to meditate next to a specific waterfall because someone in red robes told him to.”

“Actually, that sounds pretty nice right about now. No attachments.”

“Yeah, well you’re looking at the guy who makes sure Danny can  _ afford _ to have no attachments,” Ward said as he flipped through his phone. “What’s in the box?”

“Um, offerings?” Theo opened the small crate. “It’s mostly shiny fruit. He said to get whatever was round. And cash.” 

“Monks gotta get paid.”

“They gotta eat more than fruit,” Theo said as their stop arrived. “C’mon. Let’s go worship some idols.”

“Now I know why Matt didn’t come.”

“That wasn’t the reason.” 

The temple in Brooklyn was more of a basement. The only indication that anything was going on was the small crowd of Tibetans and Nepalese dressed in traditional clothing entering a side door. A monk in the front room took their box of offerings and they were ushered into the shrine room, which was lit mostly by candles and the early morning light streaming in through the glass block basement windows. A gold (or bronze, probably bronze) Buddha statue was against the wall, with a Tibetan man with long dreads sitting on the throne in front of it. Monks, nuns, and people in robes but with long hair were in neat rows on either side on the floor, with little tables in front of them containing their ritual implements and instruments. 

Danny, who said his accent was strange to earthly practitioners and grew up with a different set of prayers and tunes, had been studying to join a group of modern practitioners of Chöd, some form of Tantric ritual that Theo didn’t begin to understand, but involved a monthly ritual to “cut away obstacles and obstructions” to Enlightenment, as Danny put it. He also assured him that the daggers were only used as props. He invited Theo because - well, he didn’t say it outright, but he was proud that he was fitting in with a Buddhist community here in New York. So he wanted friends to come to his first performance. As the new guy, the mighty Iron Fist, who carried the chi of an immortal dragon or whatever, sat in the back row. The only difference to his dress was that his undershirt was green.

Without any announcements or explanations, the ceremony started with loud chanting to the sounds of synchronized drum beats, punctuated every few minutes with cymbals, horns, bells, and just about everything else that could have annoyed Matt. The audience sat patiently, most of them with their hands in a prayer position. It took a somewhat monotonous hour of some squirming, mostly from Ward because he wasn’t as used to sitting cross-legged on a thin cushion as everyone else was. 

Danny never said he missed K‘un-Lun, but - clearly, he did.

After the chanting finished, the prayer leader, who was some kind of yogi, spoke in Tibetan and people came up to receive blessings and get a white scarf placed over their necks. Theo was up there long enough to see that the bone horn he blew from was certainly not an  _ animal _ femur; he could tell that much. It seemed like the kind of thing Mrs. Gao would have around - she used to collect dinosaur bones and had them around her apartment when Theo was younger.

“You came!” Danny looked surprised, even though he didn’t need to be, and hugged both of them at the afterparty brunch next door, where they found him standing next to Colleen. “Luke was so apologetic about being away.”

“I didn’t have anything else to do at this hour,” Theo said after he got himself a fresh cup of black coffee, avoiding the milk and butter teas. “Whereas Ward’s busy managing your money.”

“I tried being a broke monk, and it didn’t go so well,” Danny admitted. “So I’m grateful.”

“Sorry, can you say that again? So I can record it on my phone?” Ward asked.

“Trust me,” Colleen told Theo, “he was really bad at it. He tried to take over my dojo by challenging me to a fight.”

“Is that how it works?”

“Not on  _ Earth _ ,” she said, glaring at Danny, who just shrugged. But she seemed to be over it. 

It was still early when people started dispersing. Ward the workaholic went to the office, and the rest of them went up to Colleen and Danny’s place above the dojo in Chinatown, since was on the way back to Hell’s Kitchen. Theo had never been there, and it was a little nicer than the dojo below it, but not by much. Like in his office, Danny had a corner where he’d gone altar crazy with the Tibetan drapes and the multiple gilded statues in decorated altar cases and incense and lamps and a cushion for him to sit on, while the rest of the room was more generically Japanese. And for the non-dojo part of the building, it sure had a lot of swords, not that Theo could find that surprising.

“You want?” Danny said after toking up from a glass pipe. 

“I thought monks were supposed to avoid intoxicants.”

“All Buddhists are supposed to avoid intoxicants, but sometimes we don’t,” Danny said. Theo couldn’t resist, and was proud he managed to take a hit without coughing from nerves. Danny continued, “When I was a teenager, a bunch of us would sneak off to smoke on the Buddha’s hand. Though I don’t know what we were smoking. Some kind of herb. It had multicolored smoke.”

“What’s the Buddha’s Hand? A bar?”

Danny didn’t offer to Colleen, who didn’t look interested. He said, “Uh, no, it was the Buddha’s hand. Like his actual hand. It’s big.”

“Wait, you  _ saw _ the Buddha? He’s a real guy?” Theo added. “No offense.”

“It was a Celestial Buddha, not Shakyamuni of earth. And I usually didn’t see his face because it was cloudy and that’s how tall he was.”

“He wasn’t bothered by you smoking on his hand?”

Again, Danny shrugged. “The Celestial Buddha is in a state of Nirvana. He’s not bothered by anything. Someone even carved graffiti on one of his fingers, but that was way before my time.”

“You know, when Danny first showed up in New York, Ward and Joy had him institutionalized,” Colleen said. “They asked me to testify that he was insane to extend the 72-hour hold. And I almost did. Sometimes I regret not doing it.”

“You love me,” Danny said with a somewhat-trippy smile, but that was really all of Danny’s smiles. “Or you at least  _ like _ me a whole lot.”

“Thanks for standing up for him, because I’m still in business because of Danny’s crazy orders,” Theo said. He didn’t know why so many people liked sitting on tatami. It was awful. 

“He bought this apartment building without asking me,” Colleen said, “which was hella creepy at the time, let me tell you.”

“I meant well!”

“Yeah, it was your saving grace, you creep,” Colleen said, even if it was with affection. “Stop buying buildings for women you’re crushing on. We feel indebted to you. It makes it complicated.”

“I have only done that ... twice. Okay, three times, but I didn’t do that to impress Claire. It was to subsidize the clinic. And she knew that.” Danny looked at Theo. “Should I buy Harlem’s Paradise?”

“To give it Luke?” Theo asked. “That’s coming on a little strong.”

Danny tried very hard not to be blushing at that exact moment. “I mean in general. It’s just sitting in arrears or whatever. And it’s a nice place.”

“What do you know about jazz?”

“ ... it’s about the notes you  _ don’t _ play?”

“You got that from a podcast,” Colleen said to him. “Why don’t you focus on the chunks of Manhattan that you already own, Richy Rich?”

“You know I got an invitation to a Stark party?” Danny said to Theo. “Not an Avengers party. I think it’s like a networking thing. Ward said I can only go if I agree not to mention the Iron Fist, which, come on, he’s Iron Man. It should be a fair topic of discussion.”

“Danny keeps getting invited to conferences for the white guys who secretly run the world,” Colleen said. “Next year it will be Davos. No, Danny, not that Davos. The meeting in Switzerland.”

“Dad used to go to that! I went once and I spent the whole time skiing with Joy.”

Colleen looked directly at Theo and said, “If Danny was not Danny he’d be the rich we’re supposed to eat. When the revolution comes he’ll have to hide.”

“The lamas say I should do a retreat anyway,” Danny said in a huff. “I could have my people reach out to Stark, ask him if he needs a caterer.”

“He definitely doesn’t,” Theo said. “And while fifteen-year-old me is super excited and intimidated by that offer, current me is much less interested. He seems like a douche.”

“He saved the world!”

“So did you guys! Or at least Manhattan. Or something. By blowing up a building. Which, by the way, for those of us who were here on 9/11, not traumatizing at  _ all _ .”

“We didn’t have a plan but we had a lot of C4,” Colleen admitted. “And I know you’re thinking it was Danny’s idea, but he was kidnapped at the time. So it’s more on the rest of us.”

“I wasn’t kidnapped!” Danny said to Colleen, then looked straight at Theo. “I was sort of kidnapped.”

Theo gave him a look and took another hit.

He spent the next few hours hiding the fact that he was stoned - Danny had really good shit, Theo should have expected that - from his employees, which was a nice switch from hiding it from his parents. But the orders got done and he came down in time for the lunch rush.

He didn’t see Matt until late into the evening, because court had gone well and there were celebratory drinks at Josie’s. Theo played a recording of the morning’s proceedings, and Matt made the most hilarious faces while trying not to look horrified at the sound.

Theo also told him about the rest of the morning. “You know, I don’t think Stark would have actually responded, but I could have taken Danny up on that catering job offer. Maybe some other Avengers will show up.”

“If you’re trying to make me jealous, you should know by now that might be physically impossible. You do you.”

“I could get you Black Widow’s number.”

Matt climbed into bed and said, “I’m not really into Black Widow. I just had to pick a sexception, and she seemed like a good choice of the original crew, the ones who fought in the Battle of New York.”

“Because she’s the only woman?”

“Her attributes have been ... well-described on the internet,” Matt admitted. “But the real answer is none of them.”

“You don’t have to say that just to impress me.”

“No, it’s, um - “ Matt had that sheepish look he had when he was trying to figure out how to say something. “I can’t really get a read on someone I don’t know unless I’m sharing a space with them. Let’s say, a block at most. Beyond that things get hazy. I’ve heard some of them at press conferences, but audio recordings are too far from the real thing. So I don’t really know what they’re like and who I would prefer.”

Theo hadn’t considered that. “I suppose a lot of it is visual. So you’ve never had a celebrity crush?” 

“There are people with sexy voices,” Matt said. “But in person, their body type could be all wrong for me.”

“Or they could smell bad.”

“That one is a dealbreaker. And you’re perfect for me.”

“You once told me I smell like weed and kitty litter.”

“And actual cat,” Matt said, and got one rub off Sadie’s back before she gave just the smallest of hisses at him, the one that was just a warning. Most people didn’t get a warning, but most people weren’t Matt. “Which I clearly have no problem with. Just don’t join a group that uses cymbals in music.”

Foggy was the musical one. “That,” Theo said, “I can handle.”

The End


End file.
